


Great plans and their not so great executions

by justme (silver_spring)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Gift Fic, Jaime is not a chef
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-17 05:21:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21261272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_spring/pseuds/justme
Summary: Jaime vs the kitchen. (spoiler alert: He loses)
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 15
Kudos: 90





	Great plans and their not so great executions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ikkiM](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikkiM/gifts).

1

  
361 days a year it was totally awesome to be Brienne's boyfriend; 362 if it was a leap year. The remaining four were pretty great too, she was wonderful in every sense and still had him have random 'how the hell did I get so lucky?'-thoughts; it was just that this handful of days, the days when he had to come up with and make up his mind about gifts for christmas, her birthday, valentine's, and, coming up next on that list, their anniversary, always had Jaime in a bit of an internal crisis.

It wasn't a money thing: Even though he had opted out of becoming his father's successor a long time ago in favour of his younger brother Tyrion and the pursuit of an academic career for himself he would actually not getting an ulcer of, he was still a Lannister and therefore member of one of the richest families in the country. Besides, Brienne had slapped a price limit on gifts a long time ago. No, it just so happened that his girlfriend was a lot of things, and he loved all of them, but easy to shop for was not on the list. Brienne simply was not the type of woman to enjoy delicate necklaces or earrings or other jewelry. She would no doubt appreciate a gift like that, even if only as to not hurt the giver's feelings, but it wouldn't be the success Jaime generally wanted his gifts to be. Case in point: His first birthday gift of a designer handbag had been pretty much a bust. She had thanked him profusely, but her wallet and phone still ended up in her pockets most of the time because apparently the purse was 'too fancy to use it everyday'. But back then, they'd only been together for about two months. He had learned.

Flowers were completely off; not only was Brienne mildly allergic to a lot of grasses, shrubs and blooming things, she also hated roses with a passion. Something about High School, yearly valentine's day customs and a prank. Candy, even the finest chocolates to be found in the whole of Westeros, was simply a very boring and not very personal gift although she and him both enjoyed the occasional chocolate rush, and if he gave her lingerie for their anniversary, it was likely to end up on top of his head or wherever it landed in case Brienne's reflexes decided to throw it across the room instead. Even though now, almost two years into their relationship, Brienne's shyness and initial insecurity mostly was a thing of the past, there were some things that she probably would take the wrong way, so frilly bras and silk panties really had to be her own idea. And Gods, was it a treat whenever she surprised him with sexy underwear. He certainly wouldn't mind if that was what she was gifting him. There had been this one time when she'd worn hold-up stockings and 4 inch heel stilettos and they'd..okay, now he was digressing and with it being two days to the anniversary, he could not afford that. What Jaime needed was an idea, stat. Something Brienne would like, something romantic, something WOW.

All of Brienne's hobbies unfortunately didn't qualify for the romance category, unless you deemed new running shoes, fencing gear or books on historical warfare as enticing, which Jaime did not and also had already used for her last birthday. A weekend trip could've been nice, but, again, it was an idea he'd used before, plus they were currently both rather occupied with their jobs and what was the point of giving someone a trip for an anniversary in april that they wouldn't be able to go on before at least july?

So far, the best he'd come up with was dinner. Candlelight, feeding each other morsels of tasty food while soft music played in the background..that, albeit not very original, could be romantic. If it weren't for the fact that they ate out at least two times a week. Maybe if he had the food delivered to their place instead? Though that would just be the usual dinner routine for about another three nights of every week. There was no way to make this dinner idea special enough, unless..

Jaime picked up his phone and went to look up 'romantic recipes'. Making their anniversary dinner from scratch with his own two hands would definitely be something Brienne would love. Something special. Thoughtful. With a WOW factor. Okay, so he'd never been much of a cook, actually hadn't even tried past breakfast foods and spaghetti so far, but really: How hard could this be when one was following instructions? This was going to be excellent.  
  
2

  
This was a trainwreck.

Jaime wiped his rather sweaty brow, not realizing he was covering half his forehead in flour while doing so. Here he was, two days later, alone in their kitchen with all the ingredients needed plus all the recipes he'd looked up at work neatly printed out and taped to the cabinets above the counter and so far, things had not exactly gone according to his plans.

Make that not at all.

The heart-shaped cookies he'd wanted to start with just wouldn't cooperate. The first batch had been hard as a rock and some more internet research had told him that it probably was because he hadn't preheated the oven. Okay. That was something the recipe writer could have mentioned at some point for baking virgins like him, but nevermind. The second batch had looked alright but unfortunately, through unforeseen circumstances, had ended up on the floor. Okay, he had burnt his hand because the dishtowel he had used as an oven mitt had been too thin to separate the heat from the hot tray and his fingers. Well, one relaxation beer (for the purpose of cooling his fingers..the bottle came from the fridge) and a string of curses later Jaime had gone and fetched his skiing gloves, just to be safe, and gone for attempt three. Which he was currently looking at and which had prompted the trainwreck comparison. Instead of 24 individual hearts, one for every month of their relationship, this batch had melted into one giant cookie entity, not even close to resembling anything heart-shaped, more looking like the ghost of kitchen disasters past, present and future. This was not okay. So not okay. And his fingertips were still tingling painfully, too. Jaime put on his gloves, took the tray out of the oven and dumped it with a contemptuous look into the trash bin. Not for the first time he thought about just placing an order and calling this kitchen experiment off, but that would've been the easy way out and not as romantic. Besides, this was personal now, him against the kitchen, and Jaime Lannister was not about to concede defeat to.. well anyone really. Maybe he wasn't much of a baker, but that didn't mean he couldn't still work some serious romance magic here.

He took the gloves off again and cracked his knuckles. Time to get really serious. Since all the shopping and prep had taken longer than he'd anticipated, he had only about four hours left until Brienne got home and in addition to cooking their feast, there were still table decorations and clean up to do, not to mention a shower and change of clothes. Scanning the recipes again, he decided to parry the meat next. The butcher had offered to do it for him, but when he'd gone shopping this morning, Jaime had still been filled with the spirit of I-can-so-do-this and opted to do everything by himself.

It turned out to be a mistake of epic proportions.

When the Valyrian Steel™ boning knife slipped after he was about halfway done and slit open the palm of his left hand, Jaime didn't even feel a thing. At first. It happened too quick. But, as soon as the blood started oozing out of the cut, his brain caught up with what had just transpired, and so had all the pain receptors.

"Oh fuck me!" Jaime wailed, as he started to drip blood all over the counter, dropping the knife and cradling his hand with the other, "Fuck me sideways! Shit!"

He needed to wrap his hand up and quick. Looking around, he grabbed a roll of paper kitchen towels, ripped off a healthy amount of sheets, balled them up and fisted them with his throbbing hand. Those fuckers were soaked through after two minutes and that after the commercial had claimed they were super-absorbant. Jaime had the sneaking suspicion this would take more than a bandaid; that he should perhaps seek medical attention. Not that he had problems with seeing blood per se, it was just seeing such a generous amount of his own that was starting to make him feel a bit woozy. Perhaps he shouldn't have skipped lunch in anticipation of a self-made gourmet dinner.

Holding his injured hand against his chest while clenching a new wad of paper towels with it, he went to grab his phone and call a cab. No way he was going to drive himself to the ER, dripping blood all over his precious car. Also, if he was honest with himself, there was the possibility of fainting. He was feeling rather light-headed.

Looking around before leaving the house to check if all kitchen appliances were off, Jaime grimaced. The kitchen was not looking too good, but there was nothing for it; he needed to see a doctor about this before doing anything else. But they'd better patch him up fast if he wanted to remove the traces of the greatest cooking fail ever before Brienne got home, put on a suit and make dinner reservations to salvage the evening. Maybe pop an ibuprofen some time in between, because his hand was starting to hurt quite horribly now. Definitely not more than that, though; after all, he had specific plans on how to end the night..

  
3

Brienne was ready to pack up and finally go home, when her phone rang. For a moment, she debated silently whether to take the call or not, but then her sense of duty won out. It may have been work-related; she had a full schedule and was currently waiting to hear from the DA in two cases before the weekend. Not looking at the display, she just pressed accept and, cradling the phone between her shoulder and ear, proceeded to put her desk in order and put her things in her rucksack.

"Brienne Tarth?"

"Hi, it's Tyrion. Can you do me a solid?" The voice of Jaime's brother greeted her. It wasn't rare that he called her when he couldn't reach Jaime, and him calling her definitely meant it wasn't work-related because Tyrion, as vice president of LanniCorp, had a whole fleet of attorneys at his disposal that were actually specialised in business law.

"Hey Tyrion. What's that?"  
"Can you go and pick up your high maintenance boyfriend from King's Landing General Hospital?"  
"What?!" Brienne exclaimed, sinking back into her chair.  
"I'd go myself but I have a video conference with Essos coming up in twenty and--" Tyrion began to explain, but she interrupted him.  
"Jaime is in a hospital?! What happened? Is he alright?"  
"He's fine. I don't think they'd let him go if he weren't."  
"What happened?" Brienne demanded to know again, getting up once more, grabbing her rucksack and making sure she could leave immediately.  
"They really don't tell you much over the phone, no matter how much Lannister-tone you use. But they did assure me that he is fine, so please don't panic."  
"I'm leaving now," she replied, locking up the office and jogging down the hallway to the elevator.  
"Drive safely, and shoot me a text when you find out more, please?"  
"Will do," Brienne promised before ending the call, hitting the button for the elevator repeatedly in quick succession. The stupid thing wasn't being fast enough for her likes, so she opted for the stairwell instead, taking two steps at a time from the fourth to the first floor. Her mind went through all kinds of scenarios that could've landed Jaime in a hospital. Tyrion had said that he was fine, but what did that really mean? Whatever had happened to him had been bad enough to need medical attention, after all. And today of all days. On their anniversary. Which, granted, in light of this injury had lost its importance for the moment, but still.  
When she'd left their house this morning, he hadn't had any plans to do anything that could injure him. He'd teased her about having the day off and lounging about in his pyjamas while she had to go to work. She would have loved to have the day off too and spend it with him, but she'd had to appear in court for a preliminary hearing with one of her clients. There wasn't much potential to get hurt when one was bingewatching reruns of Aemon, M.E. in one's PJs!  
Getting into her car, Brienne put her seatbelt on and took a moment to breathe. It was not going to help if she drove while her thoughts were all over the place. The last thing she needed was to end up in hospital as well. Then she started the engine and if she was a little over the speed limit it was something she could today make an exception for.

*~*~*

Walking briskly into the ER, Brienne immediately went for the reception desk, where a young man with black curls was sitting, staring into a computer monitor.  
"Hi, I'm here for Jaime Lannister?" She asked, leaning her hands on the counter, gripping it hard.

The clerk looked up at her, and then at the board behind him, where the various patients and their ailments were written down in medical jargon and codes.

"He's in room six," He informed her.  
"What's wrong with him?"  
"Uh..hang on..what does H-Lac mean again? Sorry, I'm still new at this job and Doctor Pycelle keeps coming up with new codes all the time.."

He swiveled his chair back to the computer and typed something while Brienne was standing there, her heart beating fast, holding her breath.

"Got it! Hand laceration. Yeah. Came in for sutures, apparently. Wait! Are you even a next of kin?"

Before Brienne could explain her status in Jaime's life, a doctor walked up to the desk, putting a clipboard into the rack.

"Snow, where's my lab report on the urine sample in 3?"  
"Uh..I don't know, doctor Stark?"

Doctor Stark, a red-headed woman with a rather motherly looking face, grimaced.

"Why am I not surprised?"  
"I can call the lab?"  
"Please do, I'd like to actually help my patient some time today."

Snow, the clerk, picked up the phone and dialled as the doctor went to pick up a new patient file from the rack. While he was waiting for the other end of the line to pick up, his gaze found Brienne again.

"Oh, doc! This lady here is looking for one of yours."

Doctor Stark turned to Brienne, giving her a nod as greeting.

"Which patient?"  
"Jaime Lannister."  
"And you are?"  
"His girlfriend," Brienne replied, preparing herself for the look she still sometimes got when people saw her and Jaime together and they figured out that they were a couple. That 'How did she bag a guy like that with a face like hers?' look. Doctor Stark, however, merely nodded.  
"Follow me, I'll show you where he is."

Brienne threw the doctor a grateful look, even though doctor Stark had already turned around and began to walk down the corridor, and hurried after her.

"What happened? I just got the call to come pick Jaime up," she asked after catching up to the doctor.  
"Apparently, Mister Lannister had a kitchen accident and cut himself in the hand. Luckily, he missed the tendon, so no surgery was necessary. The cut has been sutured, his tetanus has been updated and he should be as good as new once it's healed. Please remind him to see his primary care physician to remove the sutures in about seven to ten days."  
"Of course. Thank you, doctor."

Doctor Stark had stopped in front of a door with a six printed on it.  
"Well, here it is.." She said, before a tiny smirk stole itself onto her features.  
"Please make sure he takes his discharge papers and the aftercare instructions with him. As you will see in a moment, he is a little out of it. I gave him a generous dose of painkillers. He declared himself to be an eleven on the pain scale that goes from one to ten and was rather insistent."  
"Good Gods.."

The doctor shook her head.

"He would've been fine with a lower dose, but your boyfriend has a hard time keeping his mouth shut. Unfortunately, a healthy amount of drugs didn't do the job either. But.. he's yours now. Have a nice day."

Giving her a curt nod, doctor Stark turned and walked off, in search of her next patient. Brienne took a deep breath and quickly rapped on the door before gently opening it to peer inside.

  
4

"Baaaaaby!" A voice she knew very well greeted her. Brienne's eyes immediately found Jaime who was sitting on one of the two beds in the room, the other one being occupied by a dark-haired man, who only spared her a quick glance before going back to reading a magazine.

"Jaime! Oh Gods, are you okay?" Brienne exclaimed, rushing up to him, already relieved that he was in one piece, and looking alright except for the bandage around his hand. She didn't even think twice about the fact that he'd called her baby, an endearment he never used.

"Fine!" He grinned dopily, waving her off as she bent over him, checking. "Fee-Fa-Fine. I'm good."  
"What on earth happened?"  
"I had to go to the hospital." Jaime said in a 'duh'-tone.  
"I can see that. What happened?"  
"Got an owie." He declared, raising his heavily bandaged left hand and waving clumsily with it.  
"I gathered as much." Brienne replied, barely keeping the smile off her face. There was obviously nothing funny about him hurting himself, but he was acting so cute. An _owie_?  
"How did you injure yourself?" She specified. Jaime thought for a long moment, scrunching up his face in concentration.  
"Which time?" He finally replied.  
"How many injuries do you have?!"  
"Well, I burnt myself, but that wasn't so bad. I beered it."  
"Huh?"  
"To cool it. You know whatta mean!"  
"Okay.."  
"And then I cut myself. The doctor put stitches in me, but she wouldn't let me watch."

He actually pouted because of it.

"Why would you want to watch that?"  
"I don't know... I just wanted to. Hey, look what I can do!"

Pressing the one of the buttons in the panel on the right side of the bedframe, Jaime made the bed slowly rise higher a few inches.  
"That's great, Jaime." Boy, he was really out of it.  
"I can finally be taller than you," he said, pushing the same button again.  
"Uh..." Was he really planning on raising the bed that high? Did it even go that high? Brienne didn't want to find out. What if he fell out of it, loopy as he was? "Why don't you come down again now?"  
"Do I have to?"  
"Yeah. The doctor said we can go home now."  
"Yay!"

Jaime immediately switched to the other button and brought the bed back into its original position while Brienne grabbed his papers, folded them and put them in her jeans pocket. As he got up, he was quite wobbly on his feet so she put her arm around his waist to help steady him.

"Bye, Edmund," he threw over his shoulder as they slowly walked towards the door.  
"It's still Edmure." The man in the other bed said in a tone which implied he'd been making that particular correction more than once already.

Jaime leaned in as if to whisper in her ear, but then forgot to actually whisper and spoke loudly.  
"Poor guy can't even remember his own name, he's totally doped up on meds. Luckily, I have tolerance for these things. Like, they gave me something, but it didn't have any funny effect."  
"Obviously." Brienne deadpanned, opening the door and leading Jaime through it, carefully making sure he didn't bump his injured hand against anything. They slowly made their way to the car, which fortunately wasn't too far away, Jaime all the while babbling on about one thing or another. Brienne helped him buckle in and started the car after putting her own seatbelt on.

"Where are we going?"  
"Home."  
"Why?"  
"Because we live there."  
"Huh. Okay." Jaime shrugged. "Wanna make out?"

Brienne threw him a quick glance. He was grinning lopsidedly at her, wagging his eyebrows like he was attempting a world record.  
"I'm driving," she explained slowly.  
"I know," Jaime nodded. There was a small pause before he continued, "Wanna make out?"  
"Still driving here," Brienne patiently repeated. Then, before he could ask her a third time, she switched topics, even though she would probably not get a very coherent answer from her boyfriend.

"Jaime, I have to ask, why didn't you call me right away to come pick you up? Why call Tyrion first?"  
"Because of our anni--our an---our _thing_-day of course." Jaime explained. He looked around for a moment or two and then froze, "Oh no. No, no, no!"  
"What?"  
"It's our thing-day and I messed up the surprise!" He whined, slumping back against his seat.  
"What surprise?"  
"I can't tell you that, it's a surprise."  
"You just said the surprise was messed up already."  
"But it's still a surprise."  
"I..uh...alright?"  
"Oh no...this is bad. I suck," he lamented.  
"Whatever it was, I'm sure it would've been a wonderful surprise."  
"I suck so much."  
"Really, Jaime, it's--"  
"I'm the suckiest sucker that ever sucked."  
"Stop it, alright?" Brienne interrupted, before Jaime could put down himself even more. "You do not suck and you did not ruin our anniversary. Please stop beating yourself up over it. We can celebrate our anniversary when you're better. That you're okay is a lot more important to me. It was an accident, it could've happened to anyone. And it could've been a lot worse too, you know? On the drive over to the hospital, having no idea what had happened to you...I'm sure it hurts and I'm sure it's going to be a nuisance for you for a while, having the hand wrapped up and all, but I'm really glad it's just a cut. You could've damaged your hand a lot worse, let's be grateful you didn't."

No answer. Brienne chanced a look over to her boyfriend. Jaime sat slumped in his seat, his head resting against the window, having dozed off during her short speech. She took one hand off the steering wheel and smoothed his hair back and out of his face. Poor guy.

  
5

After waking Jaime once they arrived home and helping him slowly walk into the house, Brienne suggested that he sleep some more. Naturally, Jaime disagreed, insisting that he wasn't tired at all. Still, it wasn't a full two minutes after lying down before he dozed off again. Brienne fussed a little over him, making sure his bandaged hand wasn't in danger of being rolled onto by putting a pillow beneath it and tucking the covers around Jaime before she left the bedroom to let him rest and call Tyrion to fill him in on what exactly had happened.

Once she'd given Jaime's brother all the information, Brienne walked into the kitchen. And did a double take. Not only was there a multitude of used dishes and bowls, ingredients and kitchen tools all over the place, there was also a distinct blood trail. She had no idea how bad the cut underneath the bandage actually was, but judging by the amount of blood on the floor, it was no wonder he was high on pain meds. Heck, she would've taken a generous amount as well.

So the big surprise had apparently been making dinner for the both of them, in spite of not knowing how to cook. Brienne had to smile. It was a sweet idea, personal and special, the best kind of gift. She walked up to the cabinets where Jaime had taped his recipes to. Damn, he'd been very ambitious with his plans, too; three courses, and none of them an easy dish to make. Brienne's stomach rumbled in appreciation of the meal he'd planned for them, reminding her that she hadn't had anything except a bagel since noon. Deciding that she'd reward herself with a pizza afterwards, she turned on the tap to fill a bucket and began to clean up. Not exactly how she had envisioned spending the evening of their anniversary, but in light of today's events, not a problem. That he hadn't hurt himself even worse than he'd done was a pretty good present in itself, and although his plans had been lovely, she didn't really need anything to commemorate the day they'd become an official couple. A special date, sure, but the other 364 days in a year were just as important, and Jaime and herself found enough occasions throughout the year to celebrate this or that and make their days special.

Once the kitchen was cleaned off any traces of blood and cooking experiments and once she'd enjoyed her pizza with a cold beer, Brienne went to check on Jaime who was still sleeping peacefully. She went to the bathroom to get ready for bed, turned off all the lights, and, after putting a big glass of water and an ibuprofen on his bedside table, carefully snuggled up to his right, uninjured side, falling asleep quickly.

~*~*~*~

A persistent tickling sensation woke her the next morning. Soft but a little scratchy, Jaime's lips and stubble brushed back and forth over her neck. Taking a deep breath and stretching lazily, Brienne enjoyed the feeling for a little longer, eyes closed, before she finally turned around.

"Hey," Jaime greeted her with a smile, his hair sticking up in all directions, giving him a wonderful case of bed hair. Brienne didn't have to feel her own head to know she probably looked the same.  
"Good morning," she smiled back, before giving him a proper kiss. "How are you?"  
"I'm fine. No worries."

He lifted his bandaged hand.

"It was throbbing a little, but I took the pill you laid out for me and now it's okay. Thanks."  
"How long have you been awake?" Brienne asked, since the pill had apparently already kicked in.  
"Just a while. I wanted to take care of the kitchen. Listen: I'm really sorry I ruined our anniversary."  
"You didn't."  
"That's nice of you to say, but not only did I manage to screw up my dinner present, you also had to clean up my mess..and the blood..and I scared you on top of it all..I think it's safe to say I did ruin our night."  
"Jaime, listen to me: Nothing is ruined, okay? You didn't do it on purpose, you had an accident. And I still spent my night with the one person I wanted to spend it with. I don't need a present."  
"Oh you're getting a present, you're just not getting a homecooked present any time soon."  
"You promising to not attempt cooking again is a present in itself."  
"Excuse me? Did you see what I had planned?"  
"I did. It was mouthwatering. Providing it would've turned out edible."

Jaime widened his eyes and opened his mouth, dropping his jaw.

"You are so lucky right now I'm currently not in a position to tickle the bejesus out of you."

Being a very ticklish person, which Jaime knew and had exploited on more than one occasion, Brienne indeed felt lucky about that. Not that he needed to know it.

"You do make excellent French Toast," she generously conceded instead.  
"Why, thank you. If you hold the bowl and maybe whisk, we can make some together."  
"I think we'd better keep you out of the kitchen for a while. And since I'm not overly talented in that department either, maybe we can take a cooking class together. Just to be on the safe side for the future."  
"That can be arranged. So, we're going out for breakfast then? Post-anniversary celebration?"  
"Sounds like a plan."

Jaime nodded, gave her a quick peck, rolled out of bed and held out his good hand to Brienne.

"In that case: wanna help me shower?"  
"Perhaps I better," Brienne replied with a smirk, taking his hand and getting up, "Someone has to, after all. We don't want you to end up in hospital again because you slipped."

Really, she couldn't say that she was all that surprised when she was tackled back onto the bed, first tickled, then kissed senseless and their post-anniversary celebration breakfast actually ended up being a late lunch of leftover cold pizza, eaten in bed.

It was so them and it was special.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)


End file.
